President George Washington "The immediate objectives are the
total destruction and devastation of their settlements. It will be essential to
ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more."
Benjamin Franklin "If it be the Design of Providence to Extirpate these Savages in order to make room for Cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that Rum may be the appointed means."
President Thomas Jefferson "This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate."
President John Quincy Adams "What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey?"
President James Monroe "The hunter or savage state requires a greater extent of territory to sustain it, than is compatible with the progress and just claims of civilized live . . . and must yield to it."
President Andrew Jackson "They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."
Chief Justice John Marshall "The tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn from the forest. . . That law which regulates, and ought to regulate in general, the relations between the conqueror and conquered was incapable of application to a people under such circumstances. Discovery {of America by Europeans} gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest."
President William Henry Harrison "Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization?"
President Theodore Roosevelt "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."
General Philip Sheridan "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond